I'm typing this as I eat my lunch, which my life lovingly packed for me today. Boy is she liberal with the peanut butter. She refuses to "follow" this blog yet, btw, because she insists that it "has to be good" in order for her to do so, and apparently it will take quite a few samplings before she'll even judge it on whatever whacked-out criteria she uses. Thanks for the vote of confidence, hon.
Anyhoo, your intrepid little gutter bunny here has had some real drama in the last couple of days, during which the weather has been sunny and fairly warm (highs in the high 50's, low 60's):
Monday's ride in was pleasant, other than when I dropped my water bottle on Washington Blvd. Darn nozzle thingy busted. And it was my brand new, bright orange Dirty Harry's bottle, too. Say La Vee.
Monday's ride home? Well, cyclists have this word that they throw around to describe rides once in awhile: epic. I hadn't really adopted it yet, but Monday night truly fit the bill. It all began with Jess calling me to ask if I could stop somewhere and get some hot dogs and buns 'cuz she and the kids were building a fire. Cool. Then I go upstairs at the office to get my bike and discover a flat in the rear. Oh well. I elected to change it outside due to the decent weather. Now, let me just say that flats do indeed "suck," but I always end up with a nice sense of accomplishment when I just change one when eva, where eva.
So I got this one fixed and after swinging by the library to return some movies I'm on my way. I choose to take Evan's Ellsworth route (see my first post), and that kicks off a really smooth spin home: I catch almost all the lights, I have space and momentum for just about the whole trip and the bike feels nice and spry because I topped off the air in the tires when I changed the flat. I wheel into the parking lot of the Giant Eagle in Verona and as I'm locking my bike to a bench right outside of the entrance this woman comes up to me and says: "That was great, you passed by all the traffic and beat me here from a few miles back." I just smiled and said, "Yeah, it's fun." Boom goes the dynamite.
The trip to Giant Eagle presents a series of hills for the ride from there to the house, unless I baby it and back-track, and I ain't going out like that. Actually, the first hill is one real mother of a climb but then the rest are rolling, so you're momentum from the downhill almost carries you through the next up. I gritted out that first climb in practical dark, savored the burn (which in turn stoked my pride even further) and caught the risen crescent moon on my right through the trees whooshing by at the peaks of the rolling slopes. If my writing sounds like it's pushing towards the poetic, that's because the ride was nothing short of it. Epic.
P.S.-Went to get the bike this morning to ride in and the rear was flat again. Was it the deities of commuting extracting payment for Monday night's awesomeness? No. God is good. My tires? Not so much.
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